For a while now, Secretary Duncan has been saying that he wants to get the Department out of the business of compliance and into innovation. Many of us have applauded because there's not a whole lot of evidence that merely following federally assigned input rules necessarily leads to better students learning.
But there is one very clear area where compliance is essential, where it's a victory when the federal government ensures that specific rules are being followed: civil rights.
Today, the secretary is announcing that??the department is ramping up its efforts in this area, with a focus on racial disparities in college-preparatory classes, the differences in how students of different races are disciplined, and the implementation of Title IX's rules on gender equality in athletic programs.
These laws have been on the books for many years, so the key question is how this administration will execute them differently. The Department thinks the previous administration was lax. A senior official said, "We are back in business." In the speech, Duncan will say, "The truth is that, in the last decade, the Office for Civil Rights has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating gender and racial discrimination and protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities."??That's a pretty tough charge for sure, and one that an official from the last administration refutes.
Without question, we should applaud any administration for seeking to ensure the fair treatment of all students.
Looking past the commendable primary objective, the timing of this announcement is a bit surprising and puts this administration in the center of two important debates. First, there's the ongoing war of words about whether charter schools are contributing to racial segregation. One side contends that it is wrong to have schools whose student bodies are overwhelmingly comprised of African-Americans and Latinos; the other argues that the academic results of these schools matter more than their racial compositions.
Second, as noted above, the administration has been saying that the Department ought to be about innovation not compliance. They've been seeking to rewire the Department in this way through the Race to the Top, i3, TIF, and other shifts in the 2011 budget. Getting Congress to go along with this fundamental change, however, will be a heavy lift. Members must be convinced that the old model doesn't work and the new one makes more sense. But today's announcement underscores that, at least in some areas, the Department has critically important compliance responsibilities.
So in today's speech, I'll be looking for how the secretary navigates three issues. First, does he take a position on the issue of racially imbalanced charter schools? Second, does he link civil rights to student performance--that is, will this effort be evaluated based on compliance metrics, achievement metrics, or both? Third, does he explain how this initiative fits with his broader vision of a Department disentangled from the business of compliance?
--Andy Smarick